McCullum justifies follow-on call

After dominating most of the Test match against India in Auckland, New Zealand survived some nervous moments en route to their 40-run victory over the visitors as Shikhar Dhawan (115) and Virat Kohli (67) put up a gutsy fight in a thrilling run chase.

It had all come down to Brendon McCullum's decision to not enforce the follow on after the Black Caps had taken a huge 301-run lead in the first innings. Bowled out for 105 in their second, the hosts were still able to set the world number two side a daunting 406, which they fell short of, by only 40 runs.

But the New Zealand captain said he did not regret his decision even as India coasted along nicely at 222/2 at one stage on the penultimate day.

"You can't regret any decision you make, as you put some thought into it. Specially, when it comes to the follow on, you speak to your bowlers and your senior players."

"Some people have different theories but you try to garner as much majority as you can. Ultimately, someone has got to make that decision and I guess that comes down to me. I made the decision and I never regretted it for a moment.

"There's no guarantee we would have bowled out India for 100 in their second innings and I said right at the outset that we have got the bowlers to take 20 wickets. It was a matter of trying to give them the most amount of rest to do so and we may have won it more comfortably, but I would hate to see us chase 150-200 on the last day on that wicket with Jadeja coming into play."

McCullum praised his team for their character. New Zealand had been reduced to 30/3 before the skipper led from the way and along with Kane Williamson virtually batted India out of the game. The pacers did the rest, knocking India over for 202 in the first essay, leaving MS Dhoni's men with a record chase.

"It was a gripping Test. While we didn't ram home the advantage in the second innings with the bat, we showed a lot of heart and a lot of character today to continue to bash away and keep fighting hard and get the result in the end," said McCullum, who scored 224 in the first innings to set up New Zealand's 503.

McCullum said he was never really worried even as India looked like chasing down their target at one time. There were still a lot of runs on the board and the "wicket was starting to play pretty well as well", according to the captain, who knew it would go down to the wire.

"Even at 220 for 2, I felt we weren't that far away and that if we could get a couple of wickets leading into that new ball, I still felt confident that we were gonna be ok. But then again, my confidence doesn't necessarily marry out with reality at times as well.

"They put a lot of pressure back on us when Jadeja came out to bat with Dhoni and they played a brand of cricket that I certainly didn't expect them to play at that point in time. That put us under a lot of pressure. Thankfully we absorbed that and got through that tough situation."